Marc Marquez has taken his fourth consecutive pole position during qualifying at Jerez. The Repsol Honda rider used a radically different strategy from his rivals, using both bikes to get to use a third soft tire and make three qualifying runs instead of two. Marquez pitted twice, switched to another bike with a fresh set of tires, and on his final run, broke Jorge Lorenzo's pole record from 2008, set on the super-soft Michelin qualifying tires. Marquez' fourth pole position means he will have started every race this season from pole.

Jorge Lorenzo will start from second, the Spaniard having led for much of the session, but left four tenths adrift after Marquez' stupefying lap. Dani Pedrosa rounds out the front row, the second Repsol Honda rider just a fraction off the pace of Lorenzo. Valentino Rossi will start from fourth, and heads up the second row of the grid. Aleix Espargaro is in fifth, despite a crash late in Q2, which saw him unable to improve his time. Andrea Dovizioso rounds out the second row.

Results:

Pos

No

Rider

Bike

Time

Diff

Prev

1

93

Marc MARQUEZ

Honda

1'38.120

2

99

Jorge LORENZO

Yamaha

1'38.541

0.421

0.421

3

26

Dani PEDROSA

Honda

1'38.630

0.510

0.089

4

46

Valentino ROSSI

Yamaha

1'38.857

0.737

0.227

5

41

Aleix ESPARGARO

Forward Yamaha

1'39.007

0.887

0.150

6

4

Andrea DOVIZIOSO

Ducati

1'39.222

1.102

0.215

7

6

Stefan BRADL

Honda

1'39.243

1.123

0.021

8

44

Pol ESPARGARO

Yamaha

1'39.293

1.173

0.050

9

38

Bradley SMITH

Yamaha

1'39.390

1.270

0.097

10

19

Alvaro BAUTISTA

Honda

1'39.751

1.631

0.361

11

5

Colin EDWARDS

Forward Yamaha

1'39.814

1.694

0.063

12

69

Nicky HAYDEN

Honda

1'39.826

1.706

0.012

Q1 – Best time, Nicky Hayden, 1'39.427. Hayden and Bautista through to Q2

Comments

Marquez has been championing a new way of riding on the track and it's great to see his team trying new things off the track too. Sometimes it works(today), sometimes it doesn't work (PI), but at least they're thinking outside the box.

is riding as well as he has ever done and he's second only to MM on most occasions.......
There can only be one 'fastest' and, in that company, being 2nd is no shame.

I was just thinking, in watching the Q today, that he looks more relaxed and comfortable than I have ever seen him. I'm no great fan of his but he gets better with age IMO.

They are all looking at their riding and what MM is doing, and he has become more aggressive, I feel. I'm sure there must be things we cannot even see as well - Smith's interview with Hodgson and the discussion about using the rear brake to limit weight transfer on corner entry is a case in point (but that was also described as an early Rossi technique, so nothing is totally new). MM just seems to bring skills from other disciplines and adds 100mph or so!

Such desperation , such obsession....... Never seen anythng like that. Just like #27 whenever #93 doesn't see his name at the top of the timesheet he gets a very bad itching....(why my name is not there) that's what he thinks and then he just goes wild......

Not a mm fan but yeah have to appreciate his talent. Got a feeling that he's gonna win but still man things would not be as easy as they were in argentina. #99 is doin his best with the available equipment he has and showed dat in fp4.

At le mans the arrival of modified slicks .......that has to be the thing which can improve lorenzo and rossi's performance.

Make up of the track at least keeps them close to the others. Nipping at Bautista under normal circumstances would be an accomplishment given his bike vs the proddy but can now only be considered a disadvantage. I hope they give Nicky and Colin frame sliders so they can through T1 safely after the human torpedo does his thing! (Sorry, i couldn't help it).

A reporter asked Jorge in the post qualifying press conference whether he thought MM was playing mind games by repeatedly stating that Dani was the one to beat. MM did mention this, fairly unprompted a number of times. I do think this is quite a reasonable question posed by the reporter as MM would have known the results of FP4, where Jorge put in 5 laps in the 1'39s, vale 4, MM 3 and Dani just the one.

Does MM know something about Dani's race potential that is not obvious by the practice times? Or is he really trying to turn the screws on Jorge? Thoughts?